


i have lived a thousand lives

by PlacentaMilk



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, F/F, Giving Up, Hurt No Comfort, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlacentaMilk/pseuds/PlacentaMilk
Summary: and i would live them all again just to see you one last time
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield & Chloe Price, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price
Kudos: 3





	i have lived a thousand lives

The photo of the blue butterfly slips out of her fingers, dropping down to the pristine white tiles of the bathroom. The answer had been in front of her face the entire time, but she was too ignorant to see it. Max Caulfield can't save Chloe Price. She was never meant to. No matter what she did, it never mattered, and she thinks she's a fool for ever believing she could change anything.

She's tired. This time she slides down the wall and hugs her knees to her chest, not even bothering to watch for Nathan to come through the door. She's bone-deep, achingly tired. It's not the type of tired that's remedied by sleep, she thinks. It's just the type to settle in your bones and lay there, permanent in all of her movements and decisions and thoughts. She's exhausted. It's like her soul is a flame that's finally been snuffed out.

Eventually, maybe five minutes or five hours later, Nathan finally barges past the door. She hears him pace back and forth, hears him lose his mind. "I could fucking _bomb_ this school if I wanted to!" He seethes in anger, punching the wall, punching the mirror. Ripping his hair out, although she doesn't watch this time.

Max listens to Chloe come in, listens to her check all of the stalls and half-heartedly wishes Chloe would walk just one more foot, would check the corner and see her sitting there in defeat. Chloe doesn't, because that's not how this story goes, and Max gets to listen to Chloe say all the wrong things to push all of Nathan's buttons.

She listens, and she knows what's going on right around the corner. She could start a countdown timer for the sound of the gun going off, but all the humor and energy has been zapped out of her. There never would, and never will be humor in Chloe dying.

The gun goes off. The sound rings in her ears but all she does is close her eyes tightly and wishes for it to go away. Wishes she didn't have to hear the sound of Chloe's laboured breathing from around the corner. Wishes she hadn't gone through this a million and one times.

Nathan dips, just like he always has, and Max stays in her little bubble. Far away from the blood seeping out of the best friend she's in love with. Someone will come in eventually, and the police and paramedics will get called. They'll both be found, but not in a way that either wanted.

She's treated for shock. Chloe gets put into a body bag. Joyce shows up despite not really being able to take the time off work, and Max simply wishes the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

The funeral isn't that different.

Kate is there. And so is Warren. For Max's sake, mainly, she knows. Neither of them knew Chloe. Not personally, at least, and she knows Kate didn't even really like Chloe just because they were so different. Kate is quiet though, on the right side of Max while Warren strides along on her left.

Joyce isn't surprised to see her there. David is, but he keeps it to a minimum. Standing off to the side and watching that dark mahogany casket get lowered into the ground, she feels underwhelmed. She feels like the sadness has seeped into her bones and maybe even a little bit further, maybe into her soul, and it's just a part of her now. It's all that she is. She wants to rewind time so that none of this happened, but the picture is gone.

She made her grave, and Chloe is the one lying in it.

Max almost feels like she should say something, since Joyce is crying too much to even try, but anything she could say wouldn't make sense here. Wouldn't matter anyway.

Her breath catches in her throat when a brilliant blue monarch butterfly flutters past her shoulder to land on the edge of the casket. It sits there, it's wings high up in the wind, and stares at her. She doesn't know what the butterfly would say, but Max imagines it's a last goodbye. A 'Thank you.'

_'See you later, alligator.'_

Max does her best to hold her tears back, but it proves fruitless when the droplets fall down her cheeks anyways. Only then the butterfly flies away, back towards the forest behind them. She watches it go instead of watching the casket get lowered into the ground, and right as she goes to turn away, out of the corner of her eye she's sees the ghost of a deer.

She stays long after everyone is gone. Eventually David drives Joyce home, and Max convinces Warren and Kate that she needs to be alone. She sits in front of the upturned dirt, not even a gravestone set in place yet.. She sits for a long time, nearly until the sun sets.

Opening her little satchel, she grabs her journal and tears out a page. Anything she wanted to say during the funeral is said here, and she writes down simply, _"I have lived a thousand lives, and I would live them all again just to see you one last time."_

Max's hands shake as she folds it and places it down on the dirt. An offering, something that only she will remember, and she remembers so much. She remembers Chloe's lips on her own, the salt from tears and rain mixing together between them. She remembers Chloe's laughter, her rage, her fear. She remembers each time Chloe died, and she remembers the one time she killed Chloe herself. She remembers the amazement when she proved her powers, and she remembers the confusion when she would accidentally rewind right in the middle of her own sentence and suddenly stop talking.

She remembers the pool, the bedroom, the sneaking and lying and running. She remembers...

She remembers the 'studio.'

Max leaves not long after that terrible thought. She remembers Kate. She remembers Rachel. She remembers every terrible thing that's ever happened, and is going to happen. Chloe is dead and Rachel Amber is still buried in that junkyard. Chloe is dead and Kate will still get drugged at that vortex party and try to kill herself.

Chloe is dead and Max might still be next.

**Author's Note:**

> at this point im just trying to get shit out of my vault. this is old. this is so incredibly old, and it doesn't have anything written beyond it. just this. here, have some pain :)


End file.
